Your Employees Could Be Your Greatest Security Threat

Have you ever been concerned about how your employees interact with your company’s technology, particularly in regard to security? If so, you’re not alone. Many companies are frustrated that their employees do not care as much about security as management or their IT staff, but this frustration can be addressed with the appropriate solutions and policies.

Employee Negligence

Security negligence is the most common way that employees threaten your business.

More often than not, employee negligence with network security doesn’t come from a place of malicious intent. They simply don’t know what is expected of them and why network security is so important. Having uninformed employees is dangerous, as it increases the risk of successful cyberattacks leveraged against your business.

If you don’t address employee negligence, it’s only a matter of time before they do something that exposes your business to greater threats.

Insider Threats

While it doesn’t happen often, you also have to consider the threat of the employee insider threat.

This occurs when an employee knowingly engages in activity that undermines your security policies and threatens your business. It might involve leaking sensitive data, sharing information with your competitors, or stealing intellectual property for their own gain. Worse yet, if you’re not paying attention, you can never know who is engaging in this behavior.

This is why it’s so important to limit who can access what data, and to continuously monitor how that data is being accessed and used.

Solutions to Halt Employee Security Challenges

There is no shortcut to security—but you can make it easier with the following solutions and policies.

If you limit who can access certain types of sensitive data, the risk of that data getting shared around significantly drops. Employees should only have access to data they need to do their jobs, and nothing more. Additionally, you can encourage compliance through required training and policies, such as routine password refreshes and mandatory phishing scheme training.

Security training and policies don’t have to be hard, but they do have to be taken seriously.

Get in Touch to Learn More

If you want your business to thrive, you cannot ignore security.

But for SMBs, it’s not always about having the know-how. It’s more about ensuring you have the resources to encourage your team to comply. BNMC can equip your organization with the tools, resources, and expertise necessary to take security seriously.

To learn more, call us today at (978) 482-2020.